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| One of the surprisingly few charity shops in Brixton is also one of the best in London - especially for lovers of music and vintage clothes. This shop is so popular it's given its name to the junction of Brixton High Street and Stockwell Road - now unofficially Barnado's Corner. |
Sorry – four and a half years late, here's the promised update of an early Microgroove posting, Charity shop pecking order for the hopeless bibliomane, from March 2014.
Half a decade has not radically changed the London charity shops scene. Shops have opened and closed, the charities have become more professional (not always good news for the punters) and - given the aftershocks of the recession and Brexit vote, the nature of donations has changed. Maybe people are hanging on to their stuff a little longer, but for sure there are more people out there desperately looking for good cheap clothes, and the bargains keep on coming.
And for the most part they all still welcome ancient moochers like myself (Have to thank novelist Howard Jacobson for this word, as explained in his BBC Radio 4 Point of View programme, In Praise of Mooching).
Anyway, here's another totally subjective review of the charity shop scene in the areas I have happily mooched around in the past year or so, as of autumn 2018.
I'm still visiting the same old shops, but have also gone further afield, rummaging through the cast off books, CDs, jackets and coffee-mugs of neighbourhoods as far-flung as Forest Hill, Blackheath, East Dulwich, Streatham, Tooting, and even up north to Highgate, Hampstead, Finsbury Park, Upper Street, Dalston, Kilburn High Road, and beyond. Does such a beyond exist? Good question. Charity shops in the outer suburbs and the Home Counties is a whole different subject, which I might (but probably won't) return to one day.
Some good new finds included the British Heart Foundation Books and Music shop at 94 Streatham High Road. This shop immediately makes anyone used to old-fashioned secondhand book and record shops at home. It's packed with stuff: give yourself and hour or two to do it justice.
It's not far from one of the biggest Oxfam shops in South London, on the other side of the suburban motorway aka the A23 Brighton Road. It's maybe a personal thing but I find those massive Oxfams (the one in Kingsland Road, another in Tooting) almost too much of a good thing.
Streatham High Road is a bit of a charity shop nirvana, with samples of all the main names popping up along its seemingly never-ending length. These shops are fed by the young families inhabiting the vast areas of residential streets surrounding it, and the quality of the gear is good. There's also a healthy traffic on these pavements so bargains go quickly. Yet, fine as many of these shops seemed, there was not one that stood out or made it to any notional, personal top ten.
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| Fabulous, imaginative, topical window displays are a feature of all the best charity shops, but few beat this one at Barnado's in Brixton |
Two miles further north, however, on the same arterial road, in central Brixton, there's a real gem.
Surprisingly, this stretch has only one charity shop - but what a shop!
Brixton's Barnado's shop entered this entirely subjective, incomplete and unfair Top Ten all those years back, at number 10.
The big news is that this same shop has now soared to the Number One spot, knocking that old favourite, Clapham High Street's Save the Children store, into a very close second place.
Barnados was always good, but last year it re-branded itself as a music specialist shop, and there's certainly a lot of interesting material there for lovers of alternative, reggae, Jazz, folk, dance and generally left field music, vinyl and CD, as you'd expect in this area, and in a shop opposite the Brixton Academy.
It's also good for secondhand guitars, drums, musical instruments of all types and PA equipment: but when they come in, they go very, very fast!
This shop has provided me with several favourite jackets and shirts. I still curse myself for not snapping up the beautiful old Super 8 movie camera in a leather case I saw there a few months ago. The shop has always provided good, often unusual bargains: eg, brand new XXXL string vests in Rasta colours, old film cameras, typewriters and other curios. Plus, friendly and helpful staff.
A new entrant takes the number three spot, despite being very small: the delightful Children of the Mekong shop which opened in Lavender Hill last year. Good quality clothes, good value books, CDs and DVDs, and some nice Vietnamese craftwork gifts.
With its regular sales and attractive window displays, this is a friendly shop run chiefly, it seems, by French and Vietnamese volunteers. Just recently, they seem to have reduced the book stock, which if it's a deliberate change is a shame....but even so I'm giving this small local contender a high placing in my latest, ridiculously subjective league table of charity shops within a 30-minute bike or tube ride from my home. The fact this shop is only three minute's walk is perhaps a factor. Unfair or what? But the staff are delightful.
Another newcomer is at number 4. Well, sort of new, in the sense that this is awarded to two shops - the original store in Battersea Park Road run by the Wandsworth HIV awareness charity Oasis (now just one shop, the clothes and furniture stores having merged), and its big new sibling in Clapham Old Town.The Battersea Park Road shop is thankfully just as old-school as it always was - a big, quite gloomy shop with masses of books, CDs, toys (including, on one visit, some very scary china dolls), glass, pots and pans, bric-a-brac of all sorts. It's like something out of a non-existent Angela Carter short story.
This new OASIS shop in Clapham is big and cheerful, occupying the site of a former rather pricey fashion store in the Polygon area of Clapham Old Town (one of the poshest parts of SW4, it must be said - so much the better).
It's a magnificent shop on three floors, including a whole room of books. I popped in to check it out a few weeks ago and emerged about 90 minutes later with a bagful of books. If it caries on like this for a while, this store will be a contender for my personal number one.
The big MIND shop on Wandsworth Road can remain in its comfortable 5th place, if I can combine it with another MIND shop I've come to like in Highgate.
The SW8 store is a busy and truly cheerful shop crammed with stuff, close to the big 1920s Larkhall Estate. It's also not far from the new Nine Elms luxury flat developments: maybe they'll get some new customers!
The shop has always been good for the occasional surprise bargain, such as a set of lovely Italian Bialetti Moka coffee makers and interesting books and DVDs. It also seems very good for kids' stuff, clothes, toys, books, etc.
It now happily shares the slot with another excellent MIND shop, the double-fronted one on Archway Road opposite Highgate tube station. It's perhaps stretching the 30 minutes travel limit, unless you're very lucky with the Northern Line. This is a double dose of charity shop goodness: clothes and bric a brac in the first shop, books, CDs and records in the knocked-through next door shop.
In the original poll, the FARA shops in Northcote Road, Gloucester Road, Battersea Park Road and Balham scored well, and they continue to do so. The Northcote Road shops is especially good for designery casual menswear - presumably cast offs from all the well-heeled yummy young dads in this Nappy Valley district. Also, good for picture frames, lampshades, luggage, mirrors, ...oh, everything, even the occasional guitar. The Gloucester Road branch has a similarly delightful basement, and the clothes are seriously upmarket but NOT overpriced.
FARA has a slightly less posh and gloriously dark shop with a big menswear and book basement in Pimlico, with another branch selling retro Vintage clothing just around the corner in Tatchbrook Street. So FARA earns a good number 6 slot, and could easily return to a higher slot!
But none of them has served up the occasional brilliant bargain or surprising little treasure that they were so good at three years ago. So FARA shops stay where they were, in the upper to middle region of the chart. There's one in Earlsfield which is also worth a visit. They are certainly some of the most aesthetically pleasing shops to visit: all their staff seem to have some genius o for making a great display out of whatever arrives in the donation bags.
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| The Oxfam Bookshop in Portobello Road - great for art books, classics, languages, jazz and classical records, CDs, DVDs |
Just over the road is a fine example of Oxfam's specialist bookshops. This one has very good art, Classics, history and general fiction sections. It's got a real bookshop feel, and the staff are usually very helpful.
There's another thing about these shops that annoys me: their idea of a "Cult Literature" section. This immediately begs the question, what is cult fiction? Who decides that Vladimir Nabokov or JG Ballard or Angela Carter are cult rather than mainstream? Herman Hesse is a sort of blameless king of the cult novels, dating back to the days when he was "re-discovered" by the hippies, and read alongside Carlos Castenada, Tolkien, and that stuff about Ley Lines and alien land artists.
And yet DH Lawrence - another big cult-like following there - is nearly always given Modern Classic status.
So, it is subjective. Why split them this way? Of course Oxfam is not the real guilty party here: they're following the lead of many highly respected dealers.
The Oxfam Book Shops in Balham and Portobello Road are consistently good as well; I've scored many fine art books in these shops, although the £2.99 flat rate for paperback novels sometimes seems a bit steep.
And these Oxfam bookshops really are great, they take such care to categorise and display their books in pleasing ways, they encourage browsing and even loitering. Their biggest shop, in Upper Street, Islington, is a marvel. I've kept it out of the chart only for the reason that it's not a general charity shop.
World's End, Chelsea and Pimlico are further charity shop hotspots, each with a good Oxfam. In the West End, both the Goodge Street and Drury Lane Oxfam branches are worth a serious browse.
Strange to say, in all those wanderings, I've yet to find a shop that's significantly better than the best shops in the SW2, 4, 8 and 11 postcodes. This corner, inner south-west London, is blessed with the variety of its charity shops.
One chain that started in this area, supporting Trinity Hospice on Clapham Common, has grown and also added "Royal" to its name - at the same time concentrating even more on upmarket clothing with prices to match.
Some of the new stores, such as the one in St John's Road, Clapham Junction, have no books or music. If you're after Hugo Boss seconds, this is the place for you. There's a newish one in Camberwell, in that 60s shopping arcade next to Morrisons, which has a good feel, and the old Clapham High Street branch is as good and diverse as it ever was, with plenty of good book and music bargains.
But overall their move towards high-end clothing does nothing for me, and it's sad to see that once marvellous book and music shop in Kensington Church Street is now serving as overspill for the adjacent clothes shop. Then again, I know what a briliant place the Hospice is: and I know that these shops exist only to provide as much funding as possible to keep it going. Maybe it's a change in society, or the changes in media technology - but there's clearly more profit to be made form clothes and shoes and accessories than from books, records and CDs.
SW4 has some good and surprising one-off shops supporting local charities. One well-established shop is the Ace of Clubs homeless charity shop at 8 Clapham Park Road, just round the corner from Clapham Common tube station. It has plenty of books and the higgledy-piggledy feel of a true charity shop, the sort of place you sense you might unearth a true gem, if only you look a little harder.
There's also a long-established shop by Clapham North tube run by the well-being charity Green Light London which is good for clothes and new age stuff, crystals and joss-sticks as well as occasional book and DVD bargains. Great that it's still surviving, like dipping back into the 70s each time you visit.
Like I said, this "league table" is totally personal, and in fact bonkers - what you have for realise is that any charity shop anywhere win the country could suddenly become number one, the moment some kindly soul drops of a couple of sacks of old Penguin Classics and their late uncle's 1960/70s vinyl collection.
But actually it takes a lot more than this to create a really good shop, charity or otherwise. As soon as you enter Barnados of Brixton and Save the Children in Clapham, you detect the presence of a good, caring, imaginative and original management team. There's often good music playing, and the shelves and rails are tidied and restocked regularly. There is space to look and browse.
There are some equally promising looking shops - I won't name them, but one is in Tooting, an even bigger one in Dalston, and a third in Streatham - that should be great but almost overwhelm you with the volume of stuff. And then depress you when you realise you've already looked through most it, a few weeks back. Other shops - such as the big national BHF chain - often have excellent stock. Yet they all seem to follow the same shopfloor layout which means you have to squeeze through narrow gaps between clothes racks before you reach the books and other stuff. I don't mind clutter, but this seems to be deliberately planned clutter, just like the way Debenhams puts a maze of perfume and cosmetics counters between the entrance and the stuff you want to look at.
